


That which calls in the end

by ButtercupDeer



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Death, Eagles, Gen, Injury, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 18:05:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12018180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButtercupDeer/pseuds/ButtercupDeer
Summary: He had wanted to rest his head a long time ago, but the weariness only brought a certain restlessness with it.





	That which calls in the end

Wind howls and snow flurries in the early nights of a coming winter. He hasn't been here in a long while, but right now, in the night, Masyaf is deep in sleep. There are guards as there always should.

He is an old man now and the guards can tell – his gait is slow and lopsided from a leg long broken and healed, now aching every chance it gets. It doesn't make his trek easy. One of the younger guards asks if they could be of help, but Altair shakes his head. This is his last journey and he doesn't need help. Nevertheless, he doesn't shake the hand away when his legs betray him and nearly send him sprawling on the cold ground.

His library is a hidden chamber. It takes him longer to climb all the stairs than to actually get in the chilly room where he takes a seat against the far wall. Altair's cold, the furred cloak unable to keep away the cold that doesn't come from the outside.

In his final moments he thinks of his family, of his younger days, of Malik, of Al Mualim and his betrayal. He thinks of the order as it is. He doesn't think of Templars, of Sef or Maria, the way his one-armed brother never got well once he caught that fever.

Oh, he is old. He feels ancient. There, in the cold chamber he built with Malik, he sighs his last sigh alone.

_Wind howls and carries the snow of midwinter every which way, frost making everything slippery. Ezio ducks his face deeper into the folds of his cowl, simply concentrating on taking one step after another. A trail of ethereal gold glitters under his feet and freezing toes._

_There are no guards. There is no one. Even the birds of prey are gone._

_He had wanted to rest his head a long time ago, but the weariness only brought a certain restlessness with it. Ezio had felt his joints go stiff with age and taken off one night. His wife was old, still beautiful, his children and their children deep asleep. The Order flourished. He hadn't been needed in a long while now._

_He had been to the library before, the statue of Altair standing proud as it should. In winter, it was cold and uninviting, but as he stood at the doors... he felt at home. Masyaf felt like a home he had never known it was._

_At the far wall, behind the statue, sat old bones. He couldn't see them unless he flicked to Eagle Vision, and then they glowed a warm gold. They were shrouded in white, knives and old, rusted hidden blades attached to their arms. He didn't know any of them by names. The first time he'd seen it, he had gone to carry the bones out and give them a proper burial, they hadn't moved an inch. It was as if they had become one with the stone._

_Ezio shuffles to them now and sits by. Fragile as they look, the sturdy, skeletal shoulder now gives him comfort as he falls against it._

Winter has yet to come, but Connor can feel it in the wind, in the red and yellow leaves mingling among the evergreens. He is scarred and have been hit many times with a blade, but this feels deeper than others. He crawls back to the Homestead, feeling tired... but something is pushing at his back, something ageless. Connor wonders if his people would've known what it was called.

The distant figure of an eagle sits atop the skies. The Homestead feels just as distant and no longer his to stay, so he won't. He is gone the next day.

First he had thought it to be the sickness slowly setting into the unhealing wound, but that is not it. He's unsure if it's the infection that's made him delirious or his failing to stay in bed instead of taking the next ship to France that gives root to the festering. The men on the ship whisper and have asked the captain to get him off before everyone catches his madness or illness.

He is weak when they land and barely able to stand, but he does. He uses what little money he has left to get a decent horse.

Every now and then he is forced to rest, either in the foreign forests or the stables of kind strangers. He doesn't take beds, even when someone tries to convince him. He hears stories of similiar people like him, is asked questions. He doesn't know anything and continues on towards east.

The wound looks terrible. Black lines run through his skin around it and he knows he doesn't have long, never had long since he left, and he also knows that he should be dead already. What power that drives him forward on the beast between his knees still cannot take away the fatigue and exhaustion.

He makes it to the long abandoned ruins of a castle unknown to him, the trail of gold twined into the snow leading him on. It takes him a while to get the secret chamber open, and inside...

Connor rests next to what looks like sleeping figures and lets the rot in his blood take him.

_It's December, only few days short of Christmas. His voice cries out in pain through the temple, the pain unimaginable as the Eye destroys him inside out. There's a tight feeling in his skin that he puts down to being part of being burnt out of time and dark spots dancing in his eyes. As he tries to shake it off in vain, he goes in and out of Eagle Vision. The Eye is far too bright – but under his feet is what looks like dim, golden dust._

_Desperately, he wants to follow it, and goes to take his_ burningpeelingfreezing _arm off the artifact, but he can't. The skin is melting, his bones becoming one and he can feel everything, though the nerves are dead already._

_He wants to follow it, he needs to. Panic unrelated to dying grips him and he cries out because of it. He tugs against Juno's will, can vaguely hear Rebecca, Shaun and his father._

_Desmond needs to go, but he doesn't know where_ but he knows. He is dying, but this is wrong, wrong- _he pulls with all his dwindling focus and his hand comes off the Eye-_ Desmond falls. Hands, he brushes them off.

_He gets to his feet. He sees the faces of three assassins in front of him, all looking a mix of horrified relief, because he must look kind of nasty right now. They pull him along, and because the trail goes that way too, he follows._

_They go to the car and he's ushered to the back with William and Rebecca as they start treating his crispy arm. It hurts, he hisses. Shaun drives._

They're going the wrong way. _He tells the brit to turn over there. Everyone looks at him and asks why, but Desmond doesn't say anything. It might be because he's still in Eagle Vision, eyes blazing. They trust him. Desmond doesn't say more than the occasional instruction._

The morning after, Desmond is gone and so is his hidden blade. His phone is there, though, and William is cursing that his son hasn't grown since he was a teenager. He gets into a row with Shaun, but it comes to an end when Rebecca brings up that yes, they're all happy that Desmond is even alive after the temple, and yes, she is just as worried as the two of them. They try to find his trail and then get back in the car.

It's kind of impressive how fast someone so badly injured, on foot and without resources, can travel. All the hitch-hiking takes them to the harbour and with disbelief, they find out that Desmond had stashed away on a ship on it's way to Cairo.

They chase after him and try to think of any reason why Desmond is doing this – Bleeding, has he gone insane, what did Juno do to him? – but actually catching up is a chore. Their friend isn't so much as evading any watchful eyes but unerringly, without stop, going to an unknown destination.

 _East,_ he's going.

_Wind howls and Desmond climbs the frozen stone, steps eroded by time but he can still see them. Ghosts of assassins and civilians alike go up and down, but the path of gold blazing into it is clear. The cold can't numb his pain or take away the fact that his arm is gone._

_It's stuffed in the duffle bag on his back after a helpful old man had put an axe to it._

_Desmond hears stories from old men and women, stories that are supposedly spooky, of injured or cripplingly old men walking through like in a dream._ They come here to die. _That's alright for him, he realises. He was supposed to die in the Temple, but he didn't, because that's not where he was supposed to die._

_He knows- remembers- can find-_

_Desmond goes to the Library. It's filled with bones, just like last time. Rebecca had been creeped out about it. The golden ghosts are new, most unfamiliar to him. He spots Altair, right at the back, the oldest one. Ezio is looking around for a spot to settle on, so is Connor. A man he can tell is utterly drunk just kind of flops in a cloud of golden dust, leaving behind his remains and an empty bottle Desmond had tripped on a long time ago._

_He quietly announces_ I'm home _with a weary chuckle and joins the nest of eagles._

None of them had gone inside the Library, besides Desmond. They'd already known what was inside and weren't intimidated by some dusty old bones trapped in it.

Rebecca gasps as her eyes land on Desmond. She rushes to him through an unmoving garden of bones, but it's too late.

_When they leave, the sky is filled with eagles._


End file.
